Minority Report for XBox

Based on the Sci-Fi movie, and based on a story by Philip K. Dick, Minority Report lets you play a cop in the future where psychics know about murders before they happen.

First, kudos to the game for providing decent training. The game walks you through all aspects of gameplay, so you are familiar with the basics before entering actual missions.

The game is based on the movie, and the story, so it helps to read and see both before you play the game. In essence, society has found 3 "pre-cogs" who are able to see murders before they happen. Your character, Chief Anderton (played by Tom Cruise in the movie) is the leader of the cops who go out to snag murderers before they do the deed. Of course, in a twist of fate, Chief Anderton himself is accused of potentially murdering someone, and he sets about to prove he's innocent.

First, the graphics. This game is out on all platforms so we got the XBox version which usually has the crispest graphics of the consoles. We were pretty disappointed. Anderton looks more like a maniacal killer than a cop, definitely not based on Tom Cruise. Lighting and textures are very flat. There aren't many details, and often those suffer clipping and jaggy problems.

Yes, a few effects are neat. The concussion rifle, the cut scenes. But it doesn't make up for the headaches you get from the general atmosphere you have to wander through.

Gameplay starts reasonably with good training missions. But once you get playing, it's just a button-mashing slugfest. You're trying to bludgeon your enemies into submission, gathering 'secrets' and money along the way. Money buys you new moves and other weapons.

Even so, some of the missions become quite long and tedious, with no in-level save. If you die, you have to replay from the beginning of the level, bashing your way through everyone from the start.

Being a huge fan of Philip K. Dick, I really wanted this game to succeed. I try to promote his books and movies as much as I can. But while the game has some 'background eye candy' based on the movie, it's mash-and-bash atmosphere is just tedious. Hopefully they'll do a better job on the next game conversion they do!